Paradigm Lost: Nikola Tesla’s True Wireless

© 2017 A. David Wunsch

We examine an article written by Nikola Tesla entitled “The True Wireless,” which
appeared in the Electrical Experimenter magazine in May of 1919. His essay is analyzed
as an example of the inability of a scientist or inventor to assimilate a paradigm
shift in his discipline, and we use the language and thought of Thomas Kuhn in this
discussion. The paradigm shift in question was created by Maxwell and Hertz in the
latter third of the 19th century, a shift that explained the existence and generation
of electromagnetic waves—the basis for wireless telegraphy and eventually radio.
We also focus on the magazine in which Tesla’s piece appeared and consider why the
article might have been written and accepted for publication.

“The Hertz wave theory of wireless transmission may be kept up for a while, but I do not
hesitate to say that in a short time it will be recognized as one of the most remarkable and
inexplicable aberrations of the scientiic mind which has ever been recorded in history.”
—Nikola Tesla, “The True Wireless” 1919

“… the man who continues to resist after his whole profession has been converted has
ipso facto ceased to be a scientist.”
—Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientiic Revolutions 1962

The Paradigm
For historians of radio and the wireless
telegraph, one of the strangest docu-
ments they are apt to encounter is an
article entitled “he True Wireless” that
was published in the May 1919 issue
of the popular magazine, the Elec-
trical Experimenter. he author was
the renowned Serbian-born inventor,
Nikola Tesla (1856–1943). Tesla spent
most of his professional life in the
United States, and by 1919 he was just
past the peak of his fame—a man as
nearly well known to the general public
as Edison. He was a contributor to the
Sunday supplements of newspapers,
where he described his latest proposed
inventions such as a weapon that would
make war obsolete by creating an enor-
mous tidal wave.1
Although his reputation as an
inventor may have faded, he persists
today as a cult igure. A web search
will lead to sites proclaiming that he
invented radio, radar, x-rays, alternat-
ing current, the laser, the transistor,
and limitless free energy. His name
also endures as the brand of a pioneer-
ing high-priced electrical automobile.

Volume 30, 2017 1

Paradigm Lost: Nikola Tesla’s True Wireless
here is some irony in this—the car is
powered by batteries that supply direct
current (DC), while Tesla’s great accom-
plishment resides in his contribution
to the generation and distribution of
polyphase alternating current (AC).
He developed an ingenious device, the
induction motor, that is ideally suited
to polyphase AC because of the ease
with which such current creates the
rotating magnetic ield required by
many motors.
Readers of this paper should have
at their disposal a copy of “he True
Wireless,” which can be found on the
Internet.2 Note that the insert appear-
ing in the article was written by the
magazine’s editor, Hugo Gernsback,
who asserted, “Dr. Tesla shows us that
he is indeed the ‘Father of wireless.’”
Tesla is referred to variously as an engi-
neer, physicist, scientist, and inventor
on many websites, including the Wiki-
pedia, which contain his biography.
Historically, this blurring of occupa-
tions has a distinguished lineage: Gali-
leo, for example, invented telescopes
and other instruments and was also
an astronomer, and the transistor was
invented by men trained as scientists,
not engineers.
A Paradigm Missed
Had Tesla’s paper appeared iteen years
before—circa 1904—its content would
be unremarkable. Coming as it does in
1919, just before the era of broadcast
radio, it becomes useful as a notable
example, in the ield of science and
technology, of an inventor’s failure to
grasp what the distinguished historian
2 he AWA Review
of science homas Kuhn has described
as a “paradigm shit.”
his term irst appears in Kuhn’s
book he Structure of Scientiic Revo-
lutions published in 1962. he work is
among the most cited scholarly books
produced in the last half of the 20th cen-
tury and has been in print in various
editions for over 50 years. We refer here
to the 3rd edition of 1996.3 he expres-
sion paradigm shit has entered every-
day language, and its use has steadily
increased since Kuhn coined the
phrase. he concept will be employed
here in the discussion of Tesla’s paper.
What does Kuhn mean by this
term? In the sciences, he asserts that
a paradigm derives from “universally
recognized scientiic achievements that
for a time provide model problems and
solutions to a community of practitio-
ners.” he word “model” is key here.
he Greek-Egyptian astronomer Ptol-
emy (100–170 AD) had a model of what
we now call our solar system: his earth
was at its center, and the sun revolved
around the earth. he concept has a
limited use—it does explain sunrise
and sunset, but as mankind’s knowl-
edge of the planets and stars increased,
it became unworkable. Copernicus,
Galileo, Kepler, and Newton killed the
old model—their work, which began
circa 1540 and occupied nearly two
centuries, led to a classic paradigm
shit. he shit describes the discarding
of an old model whose use is unfruit-
ful and untenable in favor of a new
paradigm that more gracefully and
convincingly describes recent experi-
mental evidence.

For our present discussion, the
important paradigm shit began with
the Scotsman James Clerk Maxwell
(1831–1879). Consider what Nobel
Laureate Richard Feynman said
about Maxwell’s work of the period
1860–1873: “From a long view of the
history of mankind—seen from, say, ten
thousand years from now—there can
be little doubt that the most signiicant
event of the 19th century will be judged
as Maxwell’s discovery of the laws of
electrodynamics.” 4
Maxwell produced a paradigm,
or a model, for light: it was an elec-
tromagnetic wave having transverse
electric and magnetic ields. he theory
described a wave moving at the speed of
light that could be generated by electri-
cal means, and it did not specify a wave-
length—it could be, for example, 700
nanometers (like visible light, whose
wavelengths were known in Maxwell’s
era), or around 300 meters (like broad-
cast AM radio of our time).
In the late 17th century, Newton
had maintained that light consisted of
streams of particles, which he named
corpuscles; his prestige was such that his
model still had some adherents as late
as Maxwell’s era, although there was
much evidence favoring a wave theory.
To further complicate matters, others
analyzed light as a ray that describes
the path of the light energy.5
We now come to a narrative famil-
iar to many readers. In the period
1886–1889, the German physicist
Heinrich Hertz carried out a series of
experiments in which he generated a
wave that exhibited wavelengths on the
Wunsch
order of meters, possessed a measur-
able electromagnetic ield, and to a fair
approximation moved at the known
speed of light.6 hese waves could be
relected, polarized, and difracted—
just as visible light, whose properties
had been studied for several centuries.
Had the Nobel Prize been awarded in
the lifetimes of Maxwell and Hertz,
they would surely have been win-
ners. Hertz’s work was published in
the period 1887–1891 and served as a
stimulus to such people as Guglielmo
Marconi, Oliver Lodge, and Karl F.
Braun, who sought to employ Hertz’s
discovery in the ield of wireless teleg-
raphy. he story is well told in the book
by Aitken.7
Tesla recounts a meeting with
Hertz in the document we are study-
ing: he traveled to Hertz’s laboratory in
Bonn, Germany, in 1892 and describes
in “he True Wireless” an unfruitful
encounter where he informs Hertz
that he had been unable to reproduce
his results. If we believe Tesla, the two
parted “sorrowfully” with our narrator
subsequently regretting his trip.8 He
also informs us that later, even hav-
ing developed a “wireless transmitter
which enabled me to obtain electro-
magnetic activities of many millions
[sic] of horse-power,” he was unable
to “prove that the disturbances ema-
nating from the oscillator were ether
vibrations akin to those of light…”
Unable to generate what soon became
known as Hertzian waves, and having
read articles describing such waves over
the eighteen-year period preceding this
article, he remarks, “he Hertz-wave
Volume 30, 2017 3
Paradigm Lost: Nikola Tesla’s True Wireless
theory, by its fascinating hold on the
imagination, has stiled creative efort
in the wireless art and retarded it for
twenty-ive years.”
By the time Tesla wrote his article,
wireless telegraphy had been a business
for nearly 20 years—and had grown
into a very big one at that. When the
United States entered World War I in
1917, the Marconi Wireless Telegra-
phy Company of America (American
Marconi) had outitted 582 wireless
stations on ships and possessed 45
coastal stations for ship-to-shore and
international communication.9 he
Navy took these over at the beginning
of the war. At the cessation of the war,
British Marconi was eager to buy exclu-
sive rights to the Alexanderson alterna-
tors from General Electric; these were
powerful and eicient successors to the
spark gap and arc transmitters used
earlier in wireless telegraphy. Initially,
they planned to spend over $3M on 24
alternators and employ them both in
their own corporation and in Ameri-
can Marconi.10 If, as Tesla alleges, the
big business of wireless telegraphy did
not employ Hertzian waves, how did it
operate? He speciically denies that the
“disturbances” (a name he uses in lieu
of Hertz’s waves) emanating from an
oscillator “were ether vibrations akin
to that of light.”
It is interesting to examine the lan-
guage of his paper. He speaks of “some
kind of space waves” and “transversal
vibrations in the ether,” and except to
disparage them, he does not refer to
Hertz’s (or Hertzian) waves. By 1919,
his words and thinking were archaic.
4 he AWA Review
he terminology in the discourse of
radio and wireless telegraphy engineer-
ing had evolved since Hertz’s work and
the growth of international wireless
telegraphy.
We now employ the Google Book’s
Ngram Viewer, a piece of free Internet
sotware that quantiies how frequently
a word turns up in a large number of
books during a speciied time period.
he output of this sotware is a graph
showing the number of mentions in
books versus time (in years) for a word
or phrase supplied. he frequency of
use of the term Hertzian waves over
more than a century is shown in
Fig. 1. We see the term gaining cur-
rency beginning with Hertz’s famous
experiments and reaching a peak at
about the time of Tesla’s paper. It is
not hard to understand that it subse-
quently lost popularity. A search of
the term electromagnetic waves, which
ultimately replaced Hertzian waves, is
shown in Fig. 2.
As it became clear to the engineer-
ing community that the waves gener-
ated by Hertz were merely a part of the
electromagnetic spectrum—one which
was to become increasingly exploited
by broadcast AM radio, television, and
FM broadcasting—the locution Hertz-
ian waves would have seemed anach-
ronistic. It is evident that at the time
of Tesla’s writing, the term “Hertzian
waves” had already been eclipsed by
“electromagnetic waves.” Incidentally,
an Ngram of the term “radio waves”
displays a curve much like that for elec-
tromagnetic waves. Both gained favor
at the same time.
 Wunsch

Fig. 1. Frequency of use of the term “Hertzian waves.” (Google Ngram)

Fig. 2. Frequency of use of the term “electromagnetic waves.” (Google Ngram)

Tesla “Disproves” Hertzian Theory function—must function—as this lone

Electricity and Hydraulic Analogies
How did Tesla explain wireless commu-
nication without Hertzian waves or its
synonyms? he answer is fascinating.
He used a ishy version of alternating
circuit theory. A close reading of “he
True Wireless” reveals that he promoted
a form of circuit theory employing but
a single wire—in other words, there is
no real circuit such as those who under-
stood the subject are accustomed to. He
also maintains that the earth itself can
wire. He seeks to explain this with a
labored hydraulic (luid) analogy that is
illustrated in Fig. 4 of his paper, which
is reproduced here as Fig. 3.
Of course, you can send a distur-
bance down a water illed pipe with-
out employing a return circuit—just
strike one end with a hammer. His
analogy proves nothing, but its use
is understandable. When Tesla was
in college in the late 1870’s and early
1880’s, alternating current theory was a
new and diicult subject.11 If he learned

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Paradigm Lost: Nikola Tesla’s True Wireless
Fig. 3. Tesla’s luid “circuit.” (True Wireless, Fig. 4)
it there, or, as seems likely, on his own
ater college, he would have encoun-
tered textbooks that sought to treat
this discipline using analogies drawn
from hydraulics—a much older and
better-understood subject.12 It was not
uncommon then to use the word “pres-
sure,” taken from luid mechanics,
where we now use “voltage” or “elec-
trical potential.” Such analogies, which
might employ water wheels to repre-
sent inductors and elastic diaphragms
as proxies for capacitors, convey only
an intuitive feeling for AC circuits
and are of no use for communication
systems employing electromagnetic
waves.13
hus, Tesla attempted to apply a
dubious electric circuit approach where
6 he AWA Review
it had no validity. In fact, one wonders
why no one asked him if the return
wire in the circuit could be eliminated,
then why not also the wire that carries
the current that is outgoing from the
generator. Had he taken that radical
step, he might have been on his way
to understanding communication
between two antennas in the absence
of any earth.14
In criticizing Tesla for his wrong-
headed model, are we in fact guilty
of what has become known as Whig
history? he term Whig history was
introduced by the distinguished Eng-
lish historian Sir Herbert Butterield
in 1931. It can refer to an unfair judg-
ment of historical igures and their
actions that are based on our present

knowledge of what is humane and pro-
gressive and acceptable. For example, to
condemn homas Jeferson for writing
in the Declaration of Independence “All
men are created equal” (where are the
women?) would be to engage in Whig
history. In the sciences, Whig history
has a similar meaning: it would be to
criticize a scientist or inventor of the
past for failing to use concepts that we
now take for granted.15
From our present perspective, Tes-
la’s not using a wave model to explain
radio seems bizarre, but given what was
known in 1919, are we being unfair and
leaving ourselves open to the accusation
of Whiggishness? An example of Whig
history of science would be to condemn
Ptolemy for his earth centered view of
astronomy. Given the tools at his dis-
posal, his mistake is understandable.
Fig. 4. Tesla analyzes the efect of an obstacle. (True Wireless, Fig. 17)
Wunsch
And to disparage Maxwell for his fre-
quent use of the term ether—when we
know that the concept is not valid—
would be Whig history. I will seek to
explain in what follows that I have not
fallen into the trap of Whig history in
discussing Tesla.
Inluence of Mountains or Obstacles
Tesla seeks to disprove Hertzian wave
theory as a means of communica-
tion with several examples. Consider
his Fig. 17, reproduced here as Fig. 4.
Tesla claims that “unless the receiver
is within the electrostatic inluence
of the mountain range”—in what we
would now call “the near ield of the
antenna”—the signals at the receiver
“are not appreciably weakened by
the presence of the latter because the
signal passes under it [italics added]
Volume 30, 2017 7
Paradigm Lost: Nikola Tesla’s True Wireless
and excites the [receiving] circuit in
the same way as if it is attached to an
energized wire.” No radio propagation
engineer would have accepted such an
argument in 1919. Indeed, the receiver
might well detect the transmitted sig-
nal, but not for the reasons stated by
Tesla. No model of wave propagation
asserts that the signal goes under the
mountain.16
Following the work of Hertz, it was
apparent that laws of optics could be
applied to electrically generated waves.
here would have been no problem in
explaining the reception of waves by a
detector lying on the shaded side of the
mountain—it would be described as
Fresnel difraction, a theory put forth
by the eponymous French physicist
in the period 1815–1818.17 he theory
asserts, in part, that the greater the
wavelength used, the stronger the sig-
nal that makes its way into the opti-
cal “dark side,” provided the distance
from the difracting edge (here, the
mountain top) is small measured in
wavelengths.18 Given the long wave-
lengths employed by Tesla (10 kHz =>
30 km. => 18 miles), a number taken
from Fig. 1 in his article, there is no
trouble in explaining wireless recep-
tion on the far side of the mountain. By
the time Tesla published this piece, the
subject of difraction of electromagnetic
waves had become sophisticated and
had engaged the attention of a number
of distinguished mathematicians.
If the mountain is modeled as a
hemispherical impediment to the
wave, and if the earth is a good con-
ductor, then the problem of scattering
8 he AWA Review
by the mountain can be attacked using
the method of images. he problem
becomes that of a plane wave incident
upon a sphere. his problem had been
solved in the period 1908–9 by Debye
and Mie and would also show a signal
in the optical shadow cast by the hemi-
spherical mountain.19
In the period beginning in 1889 and
ending in the era of Tesla’s writing, the
Scottish mathematician H. M. Macdon-
ald had treated waves from a Hertzian
dipole difracted from the earth, which
he modeled as a perfectly conducting
sphere.20 His work was improved by
the great French scientist and phi-
losopher, Henri Poincaré, who in the
period 1909–1912 converted Macdon-
ald’s series of Bessel functions into a
deinite integral that could be better
evaluated. he German mathematical
physicist Arnold Sommerfeld, unlike
his predecessors, treated the earth as
an imperfectly conducting surface,
although he simpliied matters by mak-
ing the earth lat. He placed a verti-
cal, electrically short dipole above the
earth and derived an expression for the
resulting electric and magnetic ields.
His results of 1909 were expressed in
terms of an integral that he evaluated
asymptotically for an observer far from
the antenna. He found that a surface
wave had been generated, and his the-
ory nicely supported that of another
German, Jonathan Zenneck, whose
less rigorous work had led to what
became known as the Zenneck wave,
which existed on the ground at some
distance from the antenna. he latter
turned out to be the asymptotic solution

of Sommerfeld’s theory. In 1919, the
German mathematician Herman Weyl
solved Sommerfeld’s coniguration and
ended up with a diferent approach that
did not contain Zenneck’s wave. his
result caused Sommerfeld to rework his
solution, and his new indings did not
agree with Zenneck.
In short, the irst two decades of the
20th century was a lively and sometimes
contentious period in the theory of
radio wave propagation, but there is no
hint of this in Tesla’s paper. Nor is there
any indication in anything he wrote
that he had the sophisticated math-
ematical skills to comprehend what was
being written by the people cited above.
here were, of course, great inventors
with minimal knowledge of higher
mathematics (think of Edison, Morse,
Bell) but these largely belonged to the
19 th century, and one does see Tesla as
part of that tradition. His clinging to
a sketchy circuit theory explanation
seems pathetic. Incidentally, as early
as 1904, a textbook of Henri Poincaré
had addressed the primacy given to
currents lowing through the earth in
Tesla’s model of wireless telegraphy. He
points out that if a coherer is placed in
a hole in the ground “it will operate
[as a detector of wireless telegraphy]
when uncovered; if the hole be illed
with earth, the oscillations produce
no efect. We must look for something
more than earth currents to explain
the phenomena.” 21 Recall that the most
common detector in use at that time
was the Branly coherer.
Putting aside theoretical consider-
ations, Tesla’s paper is notable for the
Wunsch
omission of major empirical indings
contained in the famous and practi-
cal Austin-Cohen formula, a concise
expression that describes the strength
of the electric ield experienced by a
receiving antenna when both receiver
and transmitter are over the ocean.
Louis Winslow Austin and Louis Cohen
had worked for the U.S. Navy in the
early 1910’s, making shipboard electri-
cal measurements of the ield radiated
from various transmitters manufac-
tured by Reginald Fessenden’s com-
pany, the National Electric Signaling
Company, or NESCO. By 1911, the two
men had devised a successful empirical
formula that gives the received ield.22
I sh 1h 2
I r = 4.25 e -ad/√ λ .
dλ
Here Ir is the current received by an
antenna driving an impedance of 25
ohms, Is is the transmitting antenna’s
current, h1 and h2 are the lengths of the
two vertical antennas, l is the wave-
length, d is the distance separating the
antennas, and a = .0015. Lengths are
in kilometers and currents in amperes.
he formula was efective only dur-
ing the day and was so useful that it
became the basis for testing new theo-
retical predictions of received ields.
he presence of the square root of the
wavelength in the exponent was later
derived theoretically by the English
mathematician G. N. Watson and
published in 1919, only a few months
after Tesla’s paper. 23 Interestingly,
Tesla, speaking of the formula, states
unequivocally “… the actions at a dis-
tance cannot be proportionate to the
Volume 30, 2017 9
Paradigm Lost: Nikola Tesla’s True Wireless
height [length] of the antenna and the
current in the same,” which is in direct
contradiction to what the much-used
equation asserts. Tesla’s statement
“the current in the same” is especially
puzzling, not only because it had been
established experimentally but also
because he has essentially been using
alternating circuit theory, in a strange
form, and the device he is employing—
an antenna, and a conducting earth—
are mathematically linear and should,
according to linear circuit analysis,
create a response in linear proportion
to the current exciting the antenna.
Strange to say, Tesla then uses Aus-
tin-Cohen to reject Hertzian waves,
saying that, “…I cannot agree with
him [Austin] on this subject. I do not
think that if his receiver was afected
by Hertz waves he could ever establish
such relations as he has found.” So, on
Fig. 5. Tesla considers the efect of two hills. (True Wireless, Fig. 18)
10 he AWA Review
the one hand, he rejects the famous for-
mula but then embraces it as a means
to argue against Hertzian wave theory.
Let us now study Fig. 18, in Tesla’s
paper, reproduced here in Fig. 5. He
has now introduced a second moun-
tain that is further from the transmitter
than the one in the previous igure. He
argues that if Hertzian wave theory
were true, then the second mountain
“could only strengthen the Hertz wave
[at the receiver] by relection, but as a
matter of fact it detracts greatly from
the received impulses because the elec-
trical niveau between the mountains is
raised…” [niveau is a French word for
level surface].
What Tesla fails to understand here
is that without knowing the wavelength
of the radiation, the separation of the
two mountains, and the position of the
antenna between them, we can make

no statement about the enhancement or
reduction of the signal at the receiver
caused by the presence of the second
mountain. In fact, using elementary
wave theory or a transmission line
analog, we can argue that if the two
mountains are separated by half a
wavelength and if the receiver is mid-
way between them, and if the soil is
of reasonably high conductivity, then
we have what is called a standing wave
between the mountains. In this case,
the efect of the more distant mountain
is to enhance the signal at the receiver.
here are waves moving from right to
let and vice-versa between the moun-
tains. Such an arrangement, when set
up in a room, as Hertz did in his famous
experiment published in 1888, is known
as an interferometer.24
Fig. 6. Tesla considers a straight and bent antenna. (True Wireless, Fig. 16)
Wunsch
Kuhn tells us that if we want to see
what constitutes “normal science” and
the paradigms it embraces, we should
look at the textbooks of that era.25 By
1904, we can say conidently that the
paradigm shit created by Maxwell and
Hertz had taken hold and was part of
normal science. his was the date of
publication of Poincaré’s book, whose
chapters 7, 8 and 9 are devoted to the
propagation of waves along wires,
dielectrics, and air. It seems evident
that Tesla was not reading the textbooks
of his epoch.
Tesla and Antenna Theory
Another puzzling segment of Tesla’s
anti-Hertz diatribe is his Fig. 16, shown
below as Fig. 6. Tesla would have us
believe that the antenna on the right
Volume 30, 2017 11
Paradigm Lost: Nikola Tesla’s True Wireless
(which nowadays is called “an inverted
L”) is just as efective as a receiver or
transmitter as the straight antenna
on the let. He claims that he has per-
formed an experiment that supports
this conclusion. He also asserts that
the experiment proves that “currents
propagated through the ground, and
not … space waves” is the reason for
true wireless telegraphy.
In 1919, an understanding of the
theory of receiving antennas was still
fairly primitive.26 And it was only in
1924, with the work on reciprocity of
John R. Carson at Bell Labs, that the
tools that had been developed to ana-
lyze transmitting antennas could be
brought to bear on receiving anten-
nas. 27 So, we must not be harsh in
condemning Tesla for his wrongful
assertion. However, it was known as
early as 1898 that if antennas are placed
above a lat highly conducting earth,
one can invoke the method of images
for analyzing them.28 It was well known
before 1919 that if the earth is a good
conductor, the electric ield of a propa-
gating radio wave would be primarily
perpendicular to the earth, and the ield
strength would be proportional to an
integral of the current along the vertical
portion of the antenna.
It should have been apparent to
Tesla that if a transmitting vertical
wire antenna is small, measured in
wavelengths, and has the shape of the
antenna on the let of Fig. 6, and if it
is now bent into the shape shown on
the right, then the electric ield nor-
mal to a lat highly conducting earth is
reduced.29 However, the situation here
12 he AWA Review
is potentially quite complicated. he
diiculty occurs with an imperfectly
conducting earth. Marconi, in 1906,
described to the Royal Society an array
he built consisting of inverted L anten-
nas and observed that the array broad-
casts most efectively in the direction of
the arrow shown below, i.e., away from
the horizontal element.30 Fig. 7 is taken
from Principles of Wireless Telegraphy
by G. W. Pierce, published in 1910.31
Jonathan Zenneck, in the same era
as Pierce, describes the work of H. von
Hoerschelmann, a student of Arnold
Sommerfeld, who apparently was the
irst to explain the directive proper-
ties of Marconi’s antenna. His earth
is assumed to be imperfectly conduct-
ing. He includes the vertical portions
of the current induced in the earth
directly under the horizontal wires of
the array.32 he upshot is that whether
one assumes a highly conducting earth
or one of imperfect conductivity (as is
required for Marconi’s antenna), Tesla’s
assertion “that the antennas can be put
out of parallelism without noticeable
change in action on the receiver” is
utterly wrong. Marconi’s inverted L
was constructed in the year 1905, and
the explanation by Hoerschelmann was
Fig. 7. Marconi’s directional inverted L antenna.
(G. W. Pierce, Principles of Wireless Telegraphy,
1910, p. 298)

published in Zenneck’s book, which
came out in German in 1912, both well
before Tesla’s paper.33
Skin Efect
Tesla repeatedly speaks of his system
of wireless telegraphy implemented by
sending messages through the earth.
Here he displays his ignorance of what
is now referred to as “skin efect”: that
alternating currents have a marked
tendency to cling to the outside (skin)
of conductors. Knowledge of this goes
back to the work of the Englishman,
Sir Horace Lamb, in 1883 and was
advanced further by his countryman,
Oliver Heaviside, in 1885.34 he results
showed that the higher the frequency
in use, the greater the tendency for the
current to adhere to the outside of the
conductor.
It is especially puzzling that Tesla
does not mention this phenomenon
as he took advantage of it in arranging
for photographs of himself enveloped
by sparks.35 he frequency of the gen-
erator he was using was such that the
energy would not penetrate deeply into
his body, which meant that although
he might have been burnt, he would
not have been electrocuted. In an 1893
lecture before the Franklin Institute
in Philadelphia, he sought to explain
his not being shocked with a confused
discussion.36
By 1919, skin efect and the concept
of skin depth (the depth of penetra-
tion of the current) would have been
in the better electrical engineering
textbooks.37 We can calculate how far
a wave might penetrate into a mountain
Wunsch
in the United States where typical soil
conductivity, s = .005 mhos/meter and
the relative permittivity, er = 10.38 We
will assume a frequency f = 100 kHz.
Using the standard formula for skin
depth that applies when conduction
current greatly exceeds displacement
current,39 we have
1
δ=
√ π f μσ
Here d is the skin depth and m is the
permeability of the soil, assumed here
to be nonmagnetic. he skin depth for
the numbers chosen here is about 22
meters. It is virtually impossible for
the signal that Tesla imagines to pen-
etrate a mountain having these typical
parameters.
Dismissal of Gliding Waves
Let us now focus on Tesla’s Fig. 13
(shown here as Fig. 8) and his accom-
panying discussion. At the very top of
his igure Tesla has the caption, “Hertz’s
waves passing of into space through
the earth’s atmosphere.” To some-
one acquainted with even elementary
antenna theory, the picture is a puzzle.
It depicts what appears to be a vertical
antenna fed by a generator connected
between the base of the antenna and the
earth. In 1919, such an antenna would
likely be of small height when measured
in the wavelengths in use. Using the
method of images and antenna analysis
dating from the turn of that century,
it should have been apparent that no
radiation propagates along the axis
of the antenna; instead, the radiation
Volume 30, 2017 13
Paradigm Lost: Nikola Tesla’s True Wireless

Fig. 8. Tesla condemns the “Gliding Wave.” (True Wireless, Fig. 13)

tends to be focused along the ground. In suggest a wave gliding along the sur-
fact, if the current in amperes along the face of the earth, provided we are close
antenna is I0 , then elementary antenna enough to the antenna to neglect the
theory establishes that the strength of earth’s curvature. his result would
the electric ield is at a distance r from have certainly been known well before
the antenna, above the earth, is given by 1919. he book Robison’s Manual of
I 0 120πh Radio Telegraphy and Telephony for
Eθ = sinθ for 0 ≤ θ ≤ π / 2 ,
λr
where h is the length of the antenna,
l is the wavelength in use and r is the
distance of the observer from the
antenna.40 All the distances are in
meters. he meanings θ and Eθ should
be evident from Fig. 9.
Observe that directly above the
antenna corresponds to q =0, so that
sinq = 0, which indicates there is no
radiation normal to the earth, while
along the earth q = 90 degrees, and the
radiation is maximum, which might Fig. 9. Electric ield and spherical coordinates.

14 he AWA Review

the use of Naval Electricians, published
in 1918, contains the following dia-
gram showing the direction of electric
lines (see Fig. 10).41 It illustrates that a
monopole antenna radiating above a
lat perfectly conducting ground tends
to radiate in a direction parallel to the
ground and not in a direction along
the axis of the antenna. his is not a
polar plot of the ield strength vs. angle
but a picture showing the direction of
the electric ield at various locations.
Incidentally, one can argue that there
is no radiation along the axis of the
antenna even if the ground has imper-
fect conductivity.42
Tesla speciically condemns any
theory that claims “[space waves] pass
along the earth’s surface and thus afect
the receivers. I can’t think of anything
more improbable than this ‘gliding
wave’ theory which… [is] contrary to all
laws of action and reaction.” Of course,
this gliding wave concept that we would
now call a “surface wave” did describe
daytime radio propagation and was
central to the work of such theorists as
Sommerfeld, Zenneck, and Watson.43
Fig. 10. Electric ield lines of a short monopole
antenna. (Manual for U.S. Navy Electricians, 1918)
Wunsch
Tesla Debunks the Ionosphere
Warming to the task of diminishing
other theorists, Tesla then damns what
was then only a conjecture: the belief in
what was then known as the Kennelly-
Heaviside layer. We now call this the
ionosphere—a set of layers of three or
more ionized gases in the earth’s upper
atmosphere. It was irst postulated, as a
single layer, in 1902 by Arthur Kennelly
and Oliver Heaviside, working inde-
pendently, as a way of explaining how
radio waves propagate beyond the hori-
zon.44 Although its existence and height
were not veriied experimentally until
1924 by the Englishman Edward Apple-
ton, for which he was later awarded the
Nobel Prize, its presence was generally
accepted in 1919, especially as a means
to explain the long distances that radio
waves would propagate at night.45 Tesla
tells us, “I have noted conclusively that
there is no Heaviside layer, or if it exists
it is of no efect.” One wonders if he
recanted this statement ater Appleton’s
experiment.
Communication with Airplanes
Among the more perplexing aspects
of Tesla’s article is his discussion tied
to his Fig. 15. He is showing here in
Fig. 11 a “Hertz oscillator” suspended
in the air, and uses this arrangement
to explicate something that became
well known during World War I: an
airplane could communicate with a
wireless receiver on the ground. Also
known, but not discussed by Tesla,
was that two airplanes in the air might
experience radio contact with each
other.
Volume 30, 2017 15
Paradigm Lost: Nikola Tesla’s True Wireless
Fig. 11. Tesla denies there is “Space Wave” transmission in wireless telegraphy. (True Wireless, Fig. 15)
What Tesla must explain is how his
transmitter in the air might communi-
cate with the receiver on the ground in
spite of its not having a direct connec-
tion to the earth that would be capable
of efectively launching his crucial earth
currents. His explanation is that “we are
merely working through a condenser.”
Stating incorrectly there is a capacity
that “is a function of a logarithmic ratio
between the length of the conductor
and the distance from the ground,” he
says the receiver is afected in the same
manner as with an ordinary transmit-
ter. Evidently, we are to believe that the
capacitance between earth and ground
makes possible the earth currents cru-
cial to his argument.
he formula for the capacity of a
wire that he is most likely referring to
would have been well known by the
1910s when it already had appeared in
textbooks and handbooks:46
16 he AWA Review
1.111 L
C= picofarads.
2 ln ( )
2h
r
his expression is the capacity of a
wire of length L above, and parallel to,
the earth’s surface, which is assumed to
be highly conducting. An airplane in
light dragging a wire antenna behind
itself would create this situation. he
wire is at height h above the earth, and
its radius is r. All dimensions are in cen-
timeters, and the logarithm is base e.
Note that the capacity is proportional
to the wire length L, not to the loga-
rithm of L as Tesla asserted.47 Using
the well-known formula for capacitive
reactance X = 1/(2p f C), where f is the
operating frequency, we could in prin-
ciple obtain the impedance between the
wire and earth. Dividing the voltage of
the antenna, with respect to the earth,

by this impedance, we might think we
have obtained the current on the earth.
But what voltage are we to use?
Because the antenna illuminates the
earth with an electromagnetic wave, the
concept of voltage diference or poten-
tial diference cannot be applied. It was
known in the late 19 th century that elec-
tric potential diference between two
points is calculated by the line integral
of the electric ield along a path between
those points. When there is a time vary-
ing electromagnetic ield between these
points the result will depend on the
path taken and so the concept of voltage
diference ceases to be of use.48
Note that Tesla skirts entirely the
phenomenon of airplane-to-airplane
wireless communication, which had
been observed during the war.49 Such
communication could not possibly
involve earth currents if the transmis-
sion took place over a desert or dry
sandy soil.
The Hertzian Wave Discourse
he publication of Maxwell’s Treatise
on Electricity and Magnetism in 1873,
which described his work of the pre-
vious decade, together with Hertz’s
experiments of 1886–9, created the
paradigm shit which Tesla was unable
to accept. We might be a little indul-
gent here—the new paradigm was slow
to be accepted—consider Marconi for
example.
By the late 19 th century Marconi
was being lionized in the British press
because of his demonstrations of wire-
less telegraphy, but an interview in
McClure’s magazine from 1899 has him
Wunsch
declining to say what sort of waves he
was using: “What kind of waves they
were Marconi did not pretend to say; it
was enough for him that they did their
business well.” 50 When asked about the
diference between his waves and those
used by Hertz he replied “I don’t know.
I am not a scientist, but I doubt if any
scientist can tell you...” 51 What seemed
to impede the connection of Marconi’s
waves to those of Hertz’s was that it
was known by 1897 that the former’s
radiation could pass through the walls
of a building while Hertz’s, which was
based on a model of radiation as visible
light, would apparently not perform
such a feat.52
Marconi’s first British patent,
number 12039, which was filed in
1896, speaks of an arrangement that
he calls “a Hertz radiator” producing
efects “which propagate through space
[as] Hertzian rays.” But he also talks
of electrical actions or manifestations
“…transmitted through the air, earth,
or water by means of electrical oscilla-
tions of high frequency.” For a while,
Marconi’s manifestations in the ether
were known in some circles as Marconi
waves, but the term soon died. Some
further indication of the confusion,
circa 1900, is a question raised by the
historian of early wireless, J. J. Fahie,
in his publication of 1901, “… is the
Marconi efect under all circumstances
truly Hertzian…?” 53
Ater 1899, we ind that Marconi
began to refer more frequently in his
work to “Hertzian waves.” In a speech
given before the Institution of Elec-
trical Engineers (now the IET) in
Volume 30, 2017 17
Paradigm Lost: Nikola Tesla’s True Wireless
England on March 2, 1899, he says, “I
think it desirable to bring before you
some observations and results I have
obtained with a system of Hertzian
wave telegraphy, which was the irst
with which I worked….” 54 His U.S. pat-
ent 676,332 of 1901 refers to “a trans-
mitter producing Hertz oscillations.”
And, following Kuhn, we can say that
Hertzian waves entered the discourse
of “normal science” because we ind
extensive references to them in a text-
book, e.g., Poincaré, cited above. In fact,
studying the index of Poincaré, we ind
that he uses Hertzian waves and elec-
tromagnetic waves as synonyms. John
Ambrose Fleming, who was the irst
Professor of Electrical Engineering at
University College, London, and who
did major work for Marconi beginning
in 1899, published a textbook titled
Hertzian Wave Wireless Telegraphy in
1903, in which there is not the slightest
doubt that wireless telegraphy relies on
the waves of the title.
Interestingly, Tesla, in certain of
his turn-of-the-century U.S. wire-
less patents, refers to Hertzian waves,
or “radiations,” being “brought into
prominence” by Heinrich Hertz.55 In
all of these instances, such waves are
disparaged as being of an outmoded
or less desirable way of transmitting
signals, or energy, which should be
discarded in favor of one that either
uses extremely strong electric ields
and high antennas to ionize a layer
of the earth’s atmosphere which is
to then act as a conductor of a trans-
mission system (which includes the
earth’s crust)—or of another that uses
18 he AWA Review
wavelengths so long as to make the
earth into a conducting sphere that has
been brought to a resonant condition.
In the later case, he recommends using
frequencies lower than 20,000 cycles
per second (cps) and asserts one might
go as low as 6 cps (patent 787,412, lines
260–270).
Maxwell and Einstein: Diiculties
for Tesla
When Tesla wrote his True Wireless
paper he was not a young man—he
was 63. Male life expectancy in the
United States was then 54. His formal
education in science and engineering
had taken place many years before. He
had studied for somewhat less than
three years at the Austrian Polytech
in Graz Austria in the late 1870’s. In
1880 he audited courses at Charles Fer-
dinand University in Prague but was
not enrolled. His course work should
have given him a solid grounding in
electric circuit theory, and it was in
school that he developed a great inter-
est in alternating currents, especially
for motors.56 It is highly unlikely that
Tesla would have studied Maxwell’s
theory while at school. As irst pre-
sented in 1873, it was so diicult that
few could understand it; nowhere will
you ind in Maxwell’s treatise the four
succinct equations studied today by
all electrical engineering and physics
students. His analysis is based entirely
on potentials, not the electric and mag-
netic ields used now. He used 20 equa-
tions and 20 variables, and it was only
through the eforts of such people as
Hertz, Heaviside, and Willard Gibbs

in the late nineteenth century that the
equations were to assume the form we
ind them in today.57 Even with their
simpliications, we know that Maxwell’s
theory was not systematically taught
at Cambridge University until ater
around 1900.58 Because Hertz’s famous
experiment was inspired by Maxwell’s
work, which Tesla most likely did not
understand, it seems plausible that
Tesla might cling to an electric circuit
theory paradigm in explaining what
was called wireless communication.
Note however, this was not canonical
circuit theory—Tesla had added some
bizarre features of his own to force it
to explain wireless telegraphy.
Maxwell’s theory and its experi-
mental veriication by Hertz is not the
only paradigm shit in Tesla’s era that
he was unwilling to accept and under-
stand. hroughout his life, he spoke
oten of particles that moved faster
than light—a direct contradiction of
Einstein’s theory of relativity.59 In an
interview with Time magazine on the
occasion of his 75th birthday in 1931,
he claimed to have “split atoms” with
no release of energy—again a contra-
diction of relativity. He also asserted
that he had, using “pure mathematics,”
come up with a theory that “tend[s] to
disprove the Einstein theory.” here
is no indication that Tesla ever had
the knowledge to derive a competing
theory.
Circa 1930, Tesla wrote a poem for
his friend George Sylvester Viereck in
which he muses about science.60 One
stanza addresses Newton and contains
these lines:
Wunsch
“Too bad, Sir Isaac, they dimmed your
renown
And turned your great science upside
down.
Now a long haired crank, Einstein by
name,
Puts on your high teaching all the
blame.
Says: matter and force are transmutable
And wrong the laws you thought
immutable.”
Note the “long haired crank”—Tes-
la’s name for the man who overthrew
the Newtonian paradigm of mechanics.
Much has been written about oppo-
sition to Einstein’s theory of relativity;
this hostility reached its peak in the two
decades following the conirmation of
the general theory of relativity via the
measurement of the bending of starlight
by the sun’s gravitational ield in 1919.61
Some of this opposition was rooted in
anti-Semitism, as the preceding refer-
ence shows, and we do know that Tesla
had anti-Jewish tendencies.62 In addi-
tion, Hertz, whom he diminishes, was,
like Einstein, of Jewish origin,—only
partly in Hertz’s case—but it seems
more likely that the statement to Time
magazine derives more from an almost
pathological narcissism that compelled
him to be in the public eye.
Tesla has been called a scientist,
engineer, and inventor. While the
confusion and angst that can befall a
scientiic community having diiculty
in adapting to a paradigm shit has
been much written about, especially
ater Kuhn’s seminal publication, the
efect of a scientiic paradigm shit on
Volume 30, 2017 19
Paradigm Lost: Nikola Tesla’s True Wireless
inventors, as opposed to scientists, has
been less explored.63 When we study the
lives of individual inventors or engi-
neers we can ind failure to adapt to a
paradigm change.
Shifting Paradigms in Invention
Besides Tesla, whose inability to absorb
a new paradigm should be evident, we
have the example of yet another great
inventor, homas A. Edison. Edison
had little formal teaching in schools
and was largely educated by his mother
and by his own readings. His first
important work experiences and inven-
tions were in the ield of the [wired]
telegraph, which operates using direct
currents, and it is clear that he obtained
a strong intuitive grasp of DC theory. It
is understandable that his subsequent
system of generating and distributing
electric power was all based on DC.
Paul Israel, the esteemed biographer
of Edison and editor of the homas
Edison papers, remarks, “While experi-
menting with generators, Edison again
relied on his experience with telegraph
technology to provide a useful anal-
ogy that guided laboratory research.”
Israel points out how Edison and his
workers sometimes envisioned direct
current generators as “carbon battery
elements.” 64
Historians have written about
Edison’s unwillingness to adapt to the
newly introduced system of AC electric
power, which posed a direct economic
threat to his own DC system.65 We
will probably never know for sure if
his objection to AC was truly based
on his concern that it was more lethal
20 he AWA Review
than DC, or whether he was acting out
of pride, inertia, economic self-interest,
or an inability to grasp a phenomenon
requiring some mathematical sophisti-
cation that eluded him. His statement in
1891 to Henry Villard, President of Edi-
son GE, “he use of alternating current
instead of direct current is unworthy
of practical men,” has proved to be as
fatuous as Tesla’s notion that Hertzian
wave theory is “an aberration of the
scientiic mind.” 66
Age and Vanity
We are let to wonder why Tesla wrote
this long paper displaying a wealth of
ignorance. One clue might come from
an article about him that appeared in
the New York Times of January 9, 1943,
a few days ater the inventor’s death. he
generally admiring piece observes, “His
practical achievements were limited to
the short period that began in 1886 and
ended in 1903. And what achievements
they were.” By 1919, Tesla’s last impor-
tant work had taken place more than
half a generation before. Studying a list
of Tesla’s patents, we ind that about
90% of them were iled on or before
1903, and all of his important ones were
granted before this date.67
Resurrecting Tesla’s Reputation
His Electrical Experimenter piece can be
read as a rather sad efort to resurrect
his reputation. Moreover, his denigra-
tion of Hertzian waves and promotion
of the primacy of earth currents may be
seen as an attempt to preserve respect
for his construction of a 187-foot tower
(capped with a sphere) in 1901–1903 on

Shoreham, Long Island, whose pur-
pose was to produce a “World Wire-
less System” that would radiate “several
thousands of horsepower” and permit
the connectedness of all the telephone
and telegraph exchanges in the world
by wireless means. he system was to
use currents in the earth but was never
demonstrated.68
Consider his allusion in “he True
Wireless” to a speech he gave in 1893
at the Franklin Institute where there
is a portion entitled “Electrical Reso-
nance.” He remarks in 1919, “his little
salvage from the wreck has earned me
the title of ‘Father of Wireless’ from
many well-disposed workers …” Perus-
ing the speech, we wonder who these
well-disposed workers are.
In his Institute lecture he asserted,
“I do irmly believe that it is practi-
cable to disturb by means of powerful
machines the electrostatic condition
of the earth and thus transmit intel-
ligible signals and perhaps power…
We know now that electrical vibration
may be transmitted through a single
conductor. Why then not try to avail
ourselves of the earth for this purpose
[italics added]?” 69 Notice the use of the
word electrostatic. His proposal is not
based on any use or understanding
of electromagnetic waves. As further
proof of this, he goes on to wonder
what the electrical capacitance of the
earth might be and “the quantity of
electricity the earth contains.” None
of this thinking proved germane to
communication by wireless telegraphy
nor is his obsession in the article with
determining the period of oscillation
Wunsch
of currents that might be induced in a
resonant earth.
Strengthening Tesla’s Claims
In a further attempt to strengthen his
claims to invention in wireless, Tesla
lays claim to discovering the forerun-
ner of the Audion in the caption to his
Fig. 9 (reproduced here as Fig. 12). he
captions reads, “he Forerunner of the
Audion—the Most Sensitive Wireless
Detector Known, as described by Tesla
in His Lectures Before the Institution of
Electrical Engineers, London, February,
1892.” It is instructive to read the text
of the talk where he discusses his “fore-
runner.” 70 He begins by paying homage
to Professor Crookes and his invention,
the Crookes tube. Like Crookes, Tesla
is not using thermionic emission. He
employs a cold evacuated glass bulb,
like a lamp bulb, but with no ilament.
he bulb, which has a “high vacuum,”
contains some conducting powder,
which in turn is connected by a wire
to one terminal of a high frequency,
high voltage induction coil. he bulb
has a sheet of metal foil on its surface
that is also connected to the coil for
some experiments, but not others. he
Fig. 12. Tesla’s “Forerunner of the Audion.” (True
Wireless, Fig. 9)
Volume 30, 2017 21
Paradigm Lost: Nikola Tesla’s True Wireless
straight lines that you see in the igure
he calls a “brush”; it gives of a glow that
he calls luminosity—whose shape and
form he reports is very sensitive to the
presence of objects or nearby electric
or magnetic ields.
However fascinating his demonstra-
tion, Tesla still has not produced the
forerunner of the Audion. he latter, we
recall, was invented by Lee de Forest,
and was the irst working three-element
vacuum tube. His patent application is
dated January 29, 1907, and it issued on
February 18, 1908. Despite de Forest’s
confused understanding of his inven-
tion, within the next half dozen years it
was proving its worth as both an ampli-
ier and an oscillator. If we want to see
the forerunner of the Audion we must
look to the work of Fleming and Edison,
whose devices, like de Forest’s, relied on
thermionic emission. he distinguished
historian of the vacuum tube, Gerald
Tyne, makes no mention of Tesla in
his well-regarded opus.71 his is not
surprising—Tesla’s bulbs responded by
glowing only in the presence of strong,
quasi-electrostatic ields produced by
his machines.
It is regrettable that Tesla’s narcis-
sism caused him to write this paper—it
can only provide diiculty for his aco-
lytes and apologists. he ignorance he
displays of classical electromagnetic
theory, which by 1919 was a mature sub-
ject, can only diminish his reputation.
Gernsback and His Magazine
If Tesla’s True Wireless is so utterly
wrong, and if it conlicts with the para-
digms used by engineers and scientists
22 he AWA Review
of 1919, how did he get his article pub-
lished? To answer this, we must focus
on the magazine where it appeared and
its editor/publisher Hugo Gernsback
(1884–1967).72 Almost a generation
younger than Tesla, Gernsback had
certain things in common with him:
they were both inventors with substan-
tial lists of patents—Gernsback had
22, Tesla 112; both came from groups
that placed them in small minorities
in the United States (Gernsback was
a Jew from Luxemburg); both studied
science and engineering on the Euro-
pean continent; and both occupied a
kind of nether world bridging science
and fantasy.73 hey apparently had a
lasting friendship that would tend to
counter suspicions that Tesla was an
anti-Semite. Gernsback pressured the
Westinghouse Company, which had
benefited greatly from Tesla’s work
in three phase power and induction
motors, to give the near destitute inven-
tor a pension in 1934.74
Gernsback’s Electrical Experimenter
he Electrical Experimenter, started
by Gernsback in 1913, is where we ind
Tesla’s article six years later.75 Although
the term “science iction” did not exist
until coined by Gernsback in 1929, his
magazine Modern Electrics carried a
serialized story of that genre in 1911–12,
written by Gernsback—something to
keep in mind when we look at the Elec-
trical Experimenter, where Tesla was to
publish abundantly in the 7-year life of
that magazine.76
What sort of magazine was the
Electrical Experimenter? It was dense

with ads for radio hardware, e.g., Mur-
dock headphones and audio interstage
transformers as well as Grebe and De
Forest radios. Mainly, it carried stories
of new inventions, especially those with
an electrical basis, such as a new radio
compass, a method of abolishing smoke
electrically, new electric stoves, and
quack medicine—anesthesia via elec-
tricity and an electrical cure for tuber-
culosis using the Tesla coil.77 Much of
the magazine was given over to what we
would now call “techno-euphoria”—a
belief that technology would bring us
wonderful things in the not-too-distant
future. One example was the hought
Recorder, shown in Fig. 13.
he author of the article is none
other than Gernsback himself. He
imagines a man in an oice who is con-
nected to a halo on his forehead. he
halo is supporting an Audion ampli-
ier tube that detects and ampliies the
Fig. 13. The “Thought Recorder.” (Electrical Experimenter, May 1919)
Wunsch
man’s thoughts. hey are then sent to an
instrument on his desk that converts his
thoughts to an inscription on a moving
tape. he latter is supplied to the man’s
secretary who is capable of reading the
information on the tape and who can
now write letters or memos based on
what the boss has been thinking. he
article appears in the same issue as
Tesla’s, and Tesla, in an introduction,
gives some measured support to the
idea. Interestingly, Greenleaf Whit-
tier Pickard, a distinguished electrical
engineer who helped develop what we
would now call the crystal radio, circa
1904, also comments and employs the
term “Hertzian waves,” illustrating how
commonly the phrase was used.
he Electrical Experimenter does
seek to explain legitimate recent
advances in the sciences. For example,
Einstein’s special and general theory
of relativity and the general theory’s
Volume 30, 2017 23
Paradigm Lost: Nikola Tesla’s True Wireless
conirmation by the observed bend-
ing of light are carefully described in
the January 1920 issue by an unusual
person for the era: a female astrono-
mer, Isabel M. Lewis, M.A, who was
a regular contributor and the first
woman astronomer to be hired at the
U.S. Naval Observatory.78 he magazine
also published pure science iction sto-
ries, such as “At War with the Invisible”
appearing in the March and April 1918
issues, which described a war between
the planets Mars and Earth in the 21st
century.79
Science Fiction, Nostalgia for the Future
Unfortunately, a magazine mixing
techno-euphoria, future studies, sci-
ence iction and real science is play-
ing dangerous games: the boundaries
became difuse. he March 1918 Elec-
trical Experimenter has an article by
Gernsback starting on page 743 entitled
“Can Electricity Destroy Gravitation?”
he author asserts it can, and describes
the work of a Prof. Francis E. Nipher
of the Saint Louis Academy of Science.
he professor’s experiment is described
thusly: He suspends a small lead ball
from a string. It is placed in proximity
to a very heavy lead ball that rests on
a bench. he small ball and string are
seen to be delected toward the heavy
ball because of the force of gravitational
attraction—a straightforward replica-
tion of the famed Cavendish experi-
ment of 1797–8.80 he professor then
passes a direct current through the
large ball. Nothing has changed. But
then he applies an AC current, et voilà,
the small ball moves away from the
24 he AWA Review
large one, thereby proving that gravity
has been weakened by electricity.
Anyone with a modicum of knowl-
edge of electromagnetic theory would
see what was happening here. he AC
creates a time varying magnetic ield
that induces eddy currents in the small
ball. hese currents interact with the
magnetic ield to push the small ball
away from the large one. he clue that
Faraday’s law of induction and the
induced current serve as the explana-
tion should have been the failure of
the experiment to work with a direct
current. he gravitational ield, like DC
and its resulting ields, is static. A direct
current cannot induce a voltage or cur-
rent in a neighboring circuit, while
alternating currents have that ability.
Eddy currents were well understood by
1919. One wonders how much real sci-
ence Gernsback knew; it is no surprise
that he permitted another paper based
on dubious physics to be published the
next year: Tesla’s “he True Wireless.”
The Electrical Experimenter
morphed into another Gernsback
magazine: Science and Invention, in
1920.81 his publication, although it
did in some ways live up to its title,
increasingly carried science iction and
proved so successful that Gernsback
was able to introduce more magazines
(e.g., Amazing Stories, Wonder Stories)
that were wholly devoted to the science
iction genre, and he is best known as a
publisher of science iction. At least one
historian has suggested that many of
the ideas in Gernsback’s science-iction
stories promoted Tesla’s “still unreal-
ized ideas” for inventions.82

Endnotes
1. Nicholson Baker and Margaret Brentano, “he
World on Sunday: Graphic Art and Joseph
Pulitzer’s Newspaper (1898–1911),” (Bullinch
Press, Boston, 2005) pp. 102–103.
2. Nikola Tesla, “The True Wireless,” Elec-
trical Experimenter, vol. 7, no. 3, May
1919, pp.22–23, 61–63, 87. he following
website has images of the original pages:
http://w w w.free-energ y-nfo.com/Tesla
TrueWireless.pdf. Other sources of the paper
can be found by Googling the search term
“Tesla True Wireless.” Vendors of CD’s having
a complete run of the issues of the Electrical
Experimenter can be found on eBay.
3. homas Kuhn, he Structure of Scientiic Revo-
lutions, 3rd ed., (University of Chicago Press,
Chicago, 1996).
4. R.P. Feynman, R. B. Leighton, and M. Sands,
“he Feynman Lectures on Physics, vol. 2,”
(Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1964) pp. 1–6.
5. Jed Buchwald, he Rise of the Wave heory of
Light, (University of Chicago Press, Chicago,
1989); With the birth of quantum theory circa
1900–26, a particle theory of light based on
photons was to reemerge, but it did not under-
mine Maxwell’s work thanks to the concept of
the wave-particle duality. See for example Ian
Walmsley, Light: A Very Short Introduction,
(Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2015).
6. Hugh Aitken, Syntony and Spark: he Origins of
Radio, (Princeton University Press, Princeton,
1985), Chapter 3.
7. Hugh Aitken, Syntony and Spark.
8. Interestingly, we have only Tesla’s word that
this meeting took place. here is no support-
ing entry in Heinrich Hertz: Memoirs, Let-
ters, Diaries by Mathilde Hertz and Charles
Süsskind, 2nd edition (San Francisco Press,
San Francisco, 1977). As Tesla was a famous
inventor by the time of the meeting, it is puz-
zling that he was not mentioned by Hertz.
Also, no meeting is described by Bernard W.
Carlson in his deinitive biography of Tesla:
Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age, (Princeton
University Press, Princeton, 2013).
9. Tom Lewis, Empire of the Air: he Men Who
Made Radio, (Harper-Collins, New York,
1991), p 136.
10. Paul Schubert, he Electric Word: he Rise
of Radio, (Macmillan, London, 1928)
pp. 166–168.
Wunsch
11. It was not until 1893, well ater Tesla had com-
pleted his education, that the great simpliica-
tion in AC circuit analysis made possible by the
use of complex quantities began to be adopted,
thanks to the work of C. P. Steinmetz. See, for
example, Charles Proteus Steinmetz, “Complex
Quantities and their Use in Electrical Engi-
neering,” AIEE Proceedings of International
Electrical Congress, July 1893, pp. 33–74.
12. Alfred Hay, he Principles of Alternate Cur-
rent Working, (Biggs and Co, Boston, 1897)
pp.  137–148. Available at Google Books;
for other 19th century engineers who used
luid analogies—or rejected them—see Paul
J. Nahin. Oliver Heaviside: Sage in Solitude,
(IEEE Press, Hoboken, NJ) 1988, p. 59 (note his
footnote 3 and the derisive comment “drain-
pipe theory”).
13. here is a stern critique of using mechanical
explanations for explaining electrical phe-
nomena in Henri Poincaré, Maxwell’s heory
and Electrical Oscillations, (McGraw-Hill, NY,
1904) Chapter 1, pp. 1–2. his book is available
at Google Books. Tesla was so committed to
hydraulic analogies that he supplied one for
his high voltage, high frequency invention,
the Tesla coil. See N. Tesla, My Inventions.
his series of articles originally appeared in
the Electrical Experimenter in 1919. hey have
been republished in his book My Inventions
(Barnes and Noble, NY, 1995). See especially
pp. 76–77. he analogy is so complicated that
one is better served by studying the original
electrical device and applying the laws of AC
circuit theory and resonance.
14. Interestingly, in U.S. patent 645,576, Tesla
has not yet discarded the return wire in a
communication/power distribution system
he is proposing. Part of his circuit consists of
a path through an atmospheric layer that his
powerful transmitter will, he asserts, succeed
in ionizing. he earth is also employed in the
circuit. he patent was granted in 1900, but
by 1919 he has dispensed with the return part
of the circuit.
15. For an explanation of the concept of Whig
history, as it applies to the history of science,
see Steven Weinberg, “Eye on the Present, he
Whig History of Science,” New York Review
of Books, vol. 62, no. 20, Dec. 17, 2015.
16. J. Zenneck and A. E. Seelig (translation), Wire-
less Telegraphy, (McGraw-Hill, NY 1915)
Volume 30, 2017 25
Paradigm Lost: Nikola Tesla’s True Wireless
pp. 258–259. his book provides an idea of
how textbooks, circa 1910–1920, explained
waves received on the far side of the mountain.
17. See the article on difraction in the 11th edition
of the Encyclopedia-Britannica, vol. 8, 1911.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop
%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Difraction_of_Light
/11. Also, for a modern treatment see Y. T. Lo,
Y. T and S. W. Lee, Antenna Handbook, (Van
Nostrand-Reinhold, NY, 1988) sec. 29.
18. R. W. P King and S. Prasad, Fundamental Elec-
tromagnetic heory and Applications, (Prentice
Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 1986)
chapter 7.
19. Jules Stratton, Electromagnetic Theory,
(McGraw-Hill, New York. 1941), secs.
9.22–9.24.
20. Chen-Pang Yeang, Probing the Sky with Radio
Waves (University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
2013). I am greatly indebted to this source.
21. Henri Poincaré and F. King Vreeland (transla-
tion), Maxwell’s heory and Wireless Telegra-
phy, (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1904) p. 161.
Tesla might have countered by asserting that
the Branly coherer responds to the electric
ield—not the magnetic ield—and the earth
weakens the former.
22. L. W. Austin, “Some Quantitative Experiments
in Long Distance Radio Telegraph,” Reprint
No. 159, Bulletin of Bureau of Standards, vol.
7, no. 3, Feb. 1, 1911; see also Robison, 1918,
p. 228.
23. Watson, G. N. “he Transmission of Electric
Waves Around the Earth,” Proc Royal Society
(London) Series A, vol. 95, July 15, 1919, pp.
546–553.
24. Heinrich Hertz, Electric Waves, (Dover Books,
Mineola NY, reprint of Macmillan book
1893) chapter 8 (dating from 1888, especially
Fig. 26).
25. Kuhn, page 43.
26. Samuel Robison, Robison’s Manual of Radio
Telegraphy and Telephony for Naval Electri-
cians (U.S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, MD,
1918) p.131. He asserts that the directivity
behavior of the “lat top antenna” attributed
to Marconi, which involves a long piece of
wire or wires parallel to the ground, is still
not understood.
27. L. J. Chu, “Growth of the Antennas and Propa-
gation Field Between World War 1 and World
War 2. Part 1, Antennas,” Proceedings of the
IRE, vol. 50, no. 5, May 1962, pp. 685–7.
26 he AWA Review
28. Charles Burrows, “he History of Radio Propa-
gation up to the End of World War I,” Proceed-
ings of the IRE, vol. 50, no. 5, May 1962, pp.
682–684.
29. Note that Marconi had described arrays
formed from inverted L antennas as early
as 1906, as noted in G. W. Pierce below. he
horizontal elements were much longer than the
vertical ones, a coniguration not suggested
in Tesla’s Fig. 16. G. W. Pierce, Principles of
Wireless Telegraphy, (McGraw-Hill, New York,
1910) Chapter 25. See also Practical Wireless
Telegraphy, Elmer Bucher, Wireless Press, 1917,
sec. 233. Here, the horizontal portion of the
antenna is nearly a mile long.
30. See G. Marconi, “On Methods Whereby the
Radiation of Electric Waves May Be Mainly
Conined to Certain Directions, and Whereby
the Receptivity of a Receiver May Be Restricted
to Electric Waves Emanating from Certain
Directions,” Proceedings of the Royal Society
of London. Series A, Containing Papers of a
Mathematical and Physical Character 77.518
(1906): 413–21; Electrician, vol. 60, 1908, p.
883.
31. Pierce, p. 298.
32. Zenneck and Seelig, Sec. 202–204. he book
contains the reference to Von Hoerschelmann,
which was published in German as a disserta-
tion in 1911.
33. Aitken, p. 267.
34. Nahin, pp. 142–143.
35. Bernard Carlson, Tesla: Inventor of the Elec-
trical Age, (Princeton U. Press, Princeton NJ,
2013) p. 200–202; note that some images were
the result of multiple exposures where Tesla
was not present when the sparks were being
generated, see pp. 297–299.
36. T. C. Martin, editor, he Inventions, Researches
and Writings of Nikola Tesla, 1893; republished
by (Barnes and Noble, NY, 1992) Chapter 6.
From the lecture: “he reason why no pain in
the body is felt, and no injurious efect noted,
is that everywhere, if a current be imagined
to low through the body, the direction of its
low would be at right angles to the surface;
hence the body of the experimenter ofers
an enormous section to the current, and the
density is very small, with the exception of
the arm, perhaps, where the density may be
considerable…he expression of these views,
which are the result of long continued experi-
ment and observation, both with steady and

varying currents, is elicited by the interest
which is at present taken in this subject, and
by the manifestly erroneous ideas which are
daily propounded in journals on this subject.”
Tesla misses the essential point here—the very
shallow depth of penetration of the energy.
he arm plays no special role. Notice that he
takes a swipe at other workers’ “erroneous
ideas.”
37. Indeed, it was in Poincaré’s book of 1904 (see
above).
38. E. C. Jordan and K. Balmain, Electromag-
netic Waves and Radiating Systems, 2nd ed.,
(Prentice-Hall. NJ, 1968) p. 655.
39. Note that this is a simpliication of a formula
derived by Heaviside in 1888. See Nahin, who
also gives the formula we are using here, p. 176
40. King and Prasad, section 5.9. he sinθ variation
was derived by Hertz in the 19th century (see
Hertz, Electric Waves, p. 143 above) and was
popularized by Louis Cohen in a paper written
for engineers in 1914. See his “Electromagnetic
Radiation,” Journal of the Franklin Institute,
April 1914, vol. 177, no. 4, pp. 409–418.
41. Robison, 1918, p. 62. Notice that the same
picture appears in an even earlier edition of
Robison, dating from 1911, on page 76. his
book is available from Google Books.
42. R.W.P King, heory of Linear Antennas, (Har-
vard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1956)
chapter 7. Note that this work is based in part
on Sommerfeld’s work of 1909.
43. Burrows.
44. Ibid.
45. he ionosphere, although not called by that
name, could be found in electrical engineering
handbooks as early as 1915; see for example W.
H. Eccles, Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony:
A Handbook of Formulae, Data and Informa-
tion. (Electrician, London, 1915), pp. 162–3.
46. Eccles, p. 120.
47. In the unlikely event that the wire hangs
straight down from the aircrat, the preceding
formula does not apply. However, it would still
be incorrect to say that the capacitance varies
with the logarithm of the length of wire. he
required formula shows a more complicated
behavior. See Eccles p. 120.
48. James Clerk Maxwell, A Treatise on Electric-
ity and Magnetism, vol. 1.(Clarendon Press,
Oxford 1891) p. 76. his has been reprinted by
Dover Books, NY, 1954. For a modern treat-
ment that emphasizes the limitations of the
Wunsch
concept of voltage diference see Edward.C.
Jordan and Kenneth. Balmain, Electromag-
netic Waves and Radiating Systems, second
ed., (Prentice-Hall, New Jersey 1968) p. 36.
49. ht t p:// blogs.m hs.ox .ac.u k /i n novat i ng
incombat/ See also R. W. Burns, Communica-
tions: An International History of the Formative
Years, (IEE Press, UK, 2004) p. 407.
50. http://earlyradiohistory.us/1899marc.htm,
McClure’s Magazine, (London), June 1899,
pp. 99–112.
51. Sungook Hong, Wireless: From Marconi’s Black
Box to the Audion, (MIT Press, Cambridge,
MA, 2001) p. 205. See Aitken, his footnote 12
page 195. Note (same page) that even Fleming,
Marconi’s well-regarded consulting engineer,
was at irst misled by the misuse of analogies
drawn from the theory of light.
52. Aitken, pp. 285–286 and Hong p. 42, footnote
48.
53. J. J Fahie, A History of Wireless Telegraphy,
(Blackwood, Edinburgh, 1901) p. 216.
54. Guglielmo Marconi, “Wireless Telegraphy,”
Journal of the Institution of Electrical Engi-
neers, vol. 28, 1899, pp. 273–291.
55. U.S. Patent 685,955 of 1901, 685,954 of 1901,
685,956 of 1901, 787,412 of 1905.
56. Carlson, chapter 2.
57. Nahin, chapters 7 and 9.
58. Bruce Hunt, he Maxwellians, (Cornell U.
Press, Ithaca, NY, 1991) p. 202.
59. Marc Seifer, Wizard: he Life and Times of
Nikola Tesla, (Citadel Press. New York, 1998)
p. 423.
60. Margaret Cheney & Robert Uth, Tesla: Master
of Lightning, (Barnes and Noble/Metro Books,
NY, 2001) pp. 138–139.
61. Milena Wazeck , Einstein’s Opponents, he
Public Controversy about the heory of Relativ-
ity in the 1920’s. (Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, UK, 2014).
62. Seifer, p. 212.
63. For an example of writing on the subject of
paradigm shits in physics ater Kuhn, see
Jaume Navarro, “Electron Difraction Chez
homson: Early Responses to Quantum Phys-
ics in Britain.” he British Journal for the His-
tory of Science, vol. 43, 2010, pp. 245–275.
64. Paul Israel, Edison: A Life of Invention, (John
Wiley & Sons, New York, 1998) p. 176.
65. homas Parke Hughes, Networks of Power:
Electriication in Western Society, (Johns Hop-
kins University Press, Baltimore, 1983).
Volume 30, 2017 27
Paradigm Lost: Nikola Tesla’s True Wireless
66. Matthew Josephson, Edison: A Biography,
(Wiley, New York, 1992) p. 359.
67. he web site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
List_of_Nikola_Tesla_patents lists 111 or 112
U.S. Tesla patents (depending on how they are
counted).
68. Nikola Tesla, “My Inventions,” Electrical
Experimenter, 1919, see chapter 5, available on
the Internet http://www.teslasautobiography
.com/ See also Carlson, chapter 15.
69. T. C. Martin, pp. 346–7. In the late 19th cen-
tury, Tesla spoke repeatedly of disturbing the
electrostatic condition of the earth as a means
of sending intelligence. See also Martin p. 292
for an example used in a speech before the
British IEE in 1892.
70. his tube appears in a speech he gave in 1892
to the Institution of Electrical Engineers (Lon-
don). See T. C. Martin ed. pp. 225–229.
71. Gerald Tyne, Saga of the Vacuum Tube,
(Antique Electronic Supply, Tempe AZ.
1977).
72. Mike Adams, “Hugo Gernsback: Predicting
Radio Broadcasting, 1919–1924,” Antique
Wireless Association Review, vol. 27, August
2014, pp. 165–192.
73. For a listing of the Tesla U.S. patents see http://
web.mit.edu/most/Public/Tesla1/alpha_tesla.
html. he number for Gernsback was obtained
from a search of Google Patents using his name
as the inventor. Footnote 64 above also gives
a source of Tesla’s patents.
74. Carlson, p. 379.
75. K. Massie, and Stephen Perry, “Hugo Gerns-
back and Radio Magazines: An Inluential
Intersection in Broadcast History,” Journal of
Radio Studies, vol. 9, no. 2, 2002. Note that the
magazine was originally titled he Electrical
Experimenter. he title was shortened during
1917.
76. he term was apparently irst used in Gerns-
back’s magazine Wonder Stories in the issue of
June 1929; Gernsback had earlier coined the
term “scientiiction.” See Leon Stover, Science
Fiction from Wells to Heinlein, (McFarland
Publishers, Jeferson, NC, 2002) p. 9.
77. Frederick Strong, “he Home Treatment of
Tuberculosis by High Frequency Currents,”
he Electrical Experimenter, vol. 5, no. 10, Feb.
1918.
78. http://maia.usno.navy.mil/women_history/
lewis.html.
79. M Ashley and R. Lowndes, he Gernsback
28 he AWA Review
Days, (Wildside Press, Rockville, MD, 2004)
p. 51–2.
80. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavendish_
experiment.
81. Ashley, above, p. 53.
82. Stover, p. 175. In 1923 Gernsback produced a
book, Radio for All, published by Lippincott.
he work was designed to introduce people
to what was still in many ways a hobby. hus,
there were instructions for building simple
radios—crystal and one-or two-tube sets, as
well as transmitters. It is puzzling that the book
makes no mention of the work of Tesla, given
his friendship with Gernsback, although there
are numerous allusions to Marconi as well as
single references to such inventors as Poulsen,
Pickard, Fessenden, and Dunwoody.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Dr. Elizabeth
Bruton of the University of Manches-
ter, Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre, for
reading this paper and ofering useful
advice. And I would also like to thank
Prof. Karl Stephan of Texas State Uni-
versity, San Marcos, for giving me a
valuable library of early textbooks on
wireless telegraphy. I would like to
thank Prof. Chen-Pang Yeang of the
University of Toronto, a distinguished
historian of early 20th-century wave
propagation theory, for his comments.
I am indebted to this journal’s editor
Dr. Eric Wenaas for many useful sug-
gestions that resulted in my paring
down this paper and making it clearer.
About the Author
A. David Wunsch was born in Brook-
lyn, NY, on December 15, 1939. He grew
up in the same Flatbush neighborhood
of red diaper babies as Bernie Sanders.
David studied electrical engineering at
Cornell and later earned his Ph.D. at
 Wunsch

Harvard where he was a student in the David recently rebuilt the Heathkit
Antenna Group directed by Professor oscilloscope that he constructed in 1957.
R.W.P. King. He thought it would make him 17 again
David has spent most of his pro- but his beard remains white.
fessional life at the University of Mas-
sachusetts, Lowell which is located in
Lowell, Massachusetts. He is now Pro-
fessor of Electrical Engineering Emeri-
tus. In 1995 he started the course for
liberal arts majors at Lowell, Principles
and History of Radio. It is described in
the article “Electrical engineering for
the liberal arts: radio and its history,”
IEEE Transactions on Education, vol.41,
no.4, pp.320–324, Nov 1998.
David is the book review editor of
the IEEE Magazine Technology and
Society. He is the author of two text-
books: Complex Variables with Appli-
cations (Pearson), currently in its third
edition, and the recently published A
MATLAB Companion to Complex Vari-
ables (Taylor and Francis). David Wunsch

Volume 30, 2017 29